


Eadar dà Theine Bhealltainn - “Between Two Fires of Beltane”

by LadyAmarra



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAmarra/pseuds/LadyAmarra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is falling apart after his father's death. Guilt and grieve eat him up inside and he has way too much time to think about his brother in a way he promised himself to ignore a long time ago. Back on the road, after a particularly bad night, a storm forces them to stop in a tiny town in the mountains. Things go rapidly downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PART I

**Author's Note:**

> The Art within the piece is made by the fabolous dreamhunter(Lj). Such a wonderful Artist to work with!
> 
> More notes at the end!

Eadar dà Theine Bhealltainn _  
“Between Two Fires of Beltane” _   
  
By Lady Amarra   
  
  
  


****

**  
**_**BENISON  
**  
_ A _blessing, benediction  
_ Middle English _beneson,_ from Anglo-French _beneiçon,_ from Late Latin _benediction-, benedictio  
_ First Known Use: 14th century  
_  
  
~ Webster's Third New International Dictionary  
  
  


  
  
  
_

**PART I: STORM**

****

 

****

_ If I gave you the truth, would it keep you alive?  
Though I'm closer to wrong  
I'm no further from right  
And now I'm convinced on the inside that something's wrong with me  
Convinced on the inside, you're so much more than me, yeah  
No there's nothing you say that can salvage the lie  
But I'm trying to keep my intentions disguised _

  
  
~ Truth by Seether  
  
  


**1**

  
  
It starts with a storm and a roadblock on a lonely road in Colorado.

**  
2**

  
They leave Denver and all the shit that happened there behind them early in the morning, picking a direction at random. Maybe they will head for Bobby’s or find a gig on the way, but at this point they don’t know yet. They just drive.   
  
With what happened the night before, neither of them really care where they will end up, as long as it is out of Denver. After an hour of trying their best to get out of the city's area Dean decides to go east and straight into the direction the previous night’s storm had come from. Dean isn’t actually too keen on taking the smaller roads once they hit the mountains, but with the search warrants still out on their heads, he hardly has a choice. So random, mountain roads it is, curving up and down mountainsides, across hills and through valleys. Some of the places there in the mountains had been left decades ago. Ghost towns and spaces promising the presence of plenty of supernatural beings that could hide there, but they don't stop to investigate like they usually would; when not having anything else to do with their time.  
  
That lack of interest is a testament to how tense things between them really are right now.   
  
The storm of the last night still dominates the air, weighing them down, and maybe that is where the story really begins – on the night of the storm − but Dean can’t say for sure.

**  
** **3**

  
Contrary to popular belief, Sam is not a monk. He gets the girl at the end of the gig now and again, and actually goes out to spend the night with women. Sam is not Dean, and it only happens very scarcely, but he is a red-blooded male, and the time of moody silence and hurting quietly that has dominated the last couple of months seems to be over at last. Dean is glad about that, really, except that it’s mostly is a blatant lie.   
  
The two of them have spent the last three days digging up information about a ghost haunting the house of a young teacher, and finally put the spirit to rest just last night. And of course, the teacher girl had to be exactly the type of woman Sam took a fancy in: petit, but stubborn, a little bit on the mousy side, but not in a too geeky way, and also having that hot librarian vibe going on somewhere below the pretty face and welcoming smile. All in all, just what Sam might like in a woman.  
  
To be frank, it is not really all a lie. Part of Dean feels glad that Sam is better. Another part is glad that the little, annoying bitch is finally getting laid. In Dean’s opinion pinched up and brooding Sam is nearly insufferable, and nothing works better than some sex to work off the tension – at least in Dean’s case, that is.   
  
Dean, at one point, seriously contemplated dragging Sammy into another establishment. You know, the kind where you got hot girls for money, just like that time when Sam was barely able to pass for legal. Fun times, total fun. The bitching afterwards had been worth it.   
  
Times change, though.  
  
So far, all of this is just normal, big brother thinking - for the two of them, anyway, but the rest... let’s just not go there.   
  
Because if he does, he will see that the rest of him is stewing in unwanted, unjustified jealousy. And while he can bite down on all the shit inside him, quite well on a normal day, somehow today it doesn’t seem to work.   
  
Funny thing is Dean didn’t find Kelly, the young teacher, particularly attractive or interesting. There really is nothing to be jealous about in her case. At least, nothing that Dean can come up with at this point. It truly isn’t her he’s worried about, or that she would rather be out with Sam instead of himself. No, sadly Dean finds himself not jealous of Sam at all for having a date, but of his date.   
  
She gets Sam all alone to herself for the night, maybe has sex with him, can do things with Sam Dean never can. And his mind just doesn’t want to stop supplying pictures of activities a boy and a girl can do together that brother and brother can’t, or shouldn’t.   
  
He wants Sam to come back and be here. That desire to have him with him is not only because of the storm howling outside, or the hard rain drumming against the roof that may make the roads slippery and dangerous. He is not worried like that, despite all the trouble following them around, Sam is still a good hunter and a good driver – wrecking the Impala back when their dad died had been a onetime thing, and Sam did kill the demon, so Dean can cut him some slack. There is no real reason to worry about that, and it is not even that Dean is lonely and bored and that the TV doesn’t work because of the storm. Not even that he’s drunk, it’s none of the above.   
  
In truth, Dean wants Sam to be here so that he is not with that woman.   
  
Admitting that, it is the source of just the very same sour feeling in his gut that has accompanied Dean for more years now than he wants to admit, to himself. There are a gazillion reasons that Dean must deny himself - the biggest one of them being that Sam is his goddamn baby brother and brothers don’t feel that way for each other, and also, Dean is not gay.   
  
But that gay thing really is a minor problem in comparison to the rest of the fuck up – it doesn’t matter who sucks your cock, really.   
  
Deep down Dean blames his father for that, blames him for never giving Dean any other options in the matter – Dean has had to focus on Sam, always. That kind of fixation, John forced on him, couldn’t be healthy.   
  
Dean knows that much, hell, he even put some research into it back in the day because he just wanted whatever this is to stop already. On bad days, and today is a bad, really, really bad one, frustration and anger are the results of that search; and a whole lot of grumpiness that he lets out on everyone around him. Back during the time when Sam was gone, he picked fights, and was a little more physical when hunting the things that go bump in the night. Nowadays, it is mostly Sam who he picks fights with, which starts the entire inappropriate-thoughts clusterfuck all over again.   
  
Simply because the whole fighting thing involves Sam; and Sam is his drug and his poison and the sole reason for Dean to be still alive.   
  
Thoughts like this know only two kinds of solution in Dean’s book - going out and finding someone willing and warm to forget the whole inappropriate feelings thing with, or to drink himself into a coma. For lack of any cheap dives within walking distance and the goddamn storm outside, and also in lack of his car because even if Dean doesn't really want Sam to go out with Kelly, he wants him to be able to get around safely; there is no option one. So he takes the emergency bottle of Jack from where he has hidden it away, below the clothes in his duffel, and puts option two into motion.  
  
Whatever Sam is doing on his date though, leaves Dean enough time to empty about half of the bottle, and then watch a western marathon in an alcohol laced half-sleep. Someone is hanging someone else for something Dean hasn’t really paid any attention to, as Sam’s key rattles in the lock. The giant frame of Dean’s brother lets himself in, and a hard breeze of wet air pushes into the motel room right along with Sam. The smell of fresh rain, the sudden cold and a hint of something he can only describe as electricity sets Dean’s hair on edge. A switch is flicked and the pleasant, boozy haze is replaced with something else.   
  
Then and there, confronted with how Sam sneaks back into the motel room after a night of hot and acrobatic sex with a teacher, he loses it a little.  
  
He hates himself, he hates Sam for being Sam, he hates that that’s not true because he will never really hate Sam no matter what Sam might do, and most of all he hates that he feels anything but hate for Sam. Fuck, he loves Sam unconditionally and with his whole heart, so much so that it actually hurts to look at him sometimes. Right here, right now, it becomes too much for him to bear.   
  
Sam’s presence leaves Dean suddenly breathless. He feels caught in a weak moment, confused and overtaken by what-a-wounded-animal-that-gets-cornered-b

y-a-hunter must feel. He is confronted, with the one person his whole world is build around, in a moment when all his defenses are down, completely. The sudden rush of emotions gives him only two options: run or lash out.

He cannot run, and Sam is all he has to work his emotions out on. It is not fair, and he doesn’t really want to hurt Sam, but that is exactly what his next words are meant to do.

“Was the sex good?” The words are downright yanked from him without his consent or will and his voice is harsh and rougher than he had intended it to be.

Sam jumps and whirls around from where he has just closed the door, one hand at his chest. His hair is wet and framing his face prettily, and his jacket is two shades darker from the rain, and hugging every curve of his shoulders.

“Jesus, Dean!”

“Chill, man,” Dean says, grinning dryly and salutes him with the bottle still clutched in one of his hands. Cheers to even noticing the pretty, he thinks sadly and pushes the thought aside as quickly as it came. “Just wanted to know if the sex was any good,” he continues then puts the bottle to his lips and finally adds before taking a deep gulp, “she didn’t look much like it would be.”

Sam blinks at his brother for a moment then scrunches up his face in disgust.

“Are you drunk?” He shakes his head and shrugs out of his wet jacket. “Stupid question, of course you are.” Because he is, more often than not, since dad died.

Dean follows the movement of Sam’s arms and hands as they put the jacket aside and start to unbutton the shirt. The T-shirt below is tight and hugs all the right spots in all the wrong ways. Dean closes his eyes hard and continues being an asshole. It feels right to do this.

“Don’t be such a prude and answer the question,” he slurs slowly.

Sam huffs; and Dean’s alcohol laced brain supplies him, yet again, with images before his inner eyes of how his kid brother pulls that tight, olive green t-shirt he wears over his head. How he will discard all of his clothes and wander into the shower to wash off the touches of that kindergarten teacher bitch. There will be a lot of naked skin, miles and miles of it. And, oh god is Dean drunk, and horny. Great.

“None of your god damn business,” Sam snaps, but not from the bathroom as Dean had expected. Instead he finds his brother impossibly close.

Sam stands bent over the side of Dean’s bed, hand reaching out to take Dean’s bottle away. Oh, too close. Too close. All Dean can do is blink owlishly at the slow-motion movement of Sam’s hand and lips and still can’t move.

“Now give me that bottle, you’ve had enough.”

Sam takes the bottle by the neck and pulls. Dean finds himself too busy watching his brother’s body move to do something about it until it is almost too late.

God, he is drunk; and horny all of a sudden, and Dean really, really, doesn’t want his brother this close.

“I decide when I’ve had enough.” Dean grabs for the bottle with both hands, pulling it back and swinging his legs up and over the side of the bed. He tries to stand up as steadily as he possibly can.

“It’s really good stuff,” he adds. “I nicked it from Bobby.”

“He’s gonna be pissed, dude,” Sam says without real heat, and Dean can practically hear his eyes rolling. Sam watches Dean try to get up and off the bed for a moment then sighs in annoyance. He walks around the bed to repeat his attempt to steal the bottle. This time he is more successful and snatches it away while Dean sways a little on his feet.

“Asshole,” Dean growls as soon as he sees the bottle go. “Give me back my Jack.” So I don’t have to think shit about you I shouldn’t be thinking, he adds in his head, and is so glad that he’s not nearly wasted enough yet to say all of his thoughts out loud.

Sam holds the bottle high above Dean’s head which is a very unfair move in Dean’s opinion. He launches himself at his little brother with all the energy of a drunken man his size and weight can muster. The impact throws Sam off for a moment and he stumbles back, but does not release the bottle.

“Cut it out, Dean!”

“Give me that fucking-“ Dean growls and pushes against his brother once more. Frustration mounts and Dean becomes more and more annoyed and angry with every second.

There is a point, particularly when you’re drunk, stupid and messed up as Dean is right now at which things tend to get out of hand. This is one of those moments.

Dean is in over his head; too close, too much, too angry with himself. He lets control slip, and before he even truly understands, the struggling leads to his fist connecting hard with Sam’s face.

Sam is propelled back, not so much from the impact, as from the surprise; and holds his jaw. There is blood at the corner of Sam’s mouth, fresh and red, and impossible to miss.

Dean is flooded with regret the moment he understands what he has done, but he can’t undo it, and there is too much waiting behind that wall of anger that could still break out if Dean lets it. He cannot let his emotions get the better of him, not now and not here.

While Dean is thinking, Sam blinks at his older brother for a long moment, too long for Dean’s taste, and then growls, “What the hell has gotten into you, Dean?”

This is a damn good question, Dean has to admit, and he really has no answer for it. Except that he does, but if he speaks it will just make his whole damn life more miserable than it already is. And that is all Sam’s fault, Dean thinks in alcohol addled logic. No, no it really isn’t, because it isn’t Sam, it is Dean who is wrong here.

God fucking damn.

Sam wipes the blood off with the backside of his hand, and while he should be stirring in his own cloud of sudden anger, instead Sam just stares. Dean is left to wonder what Sam is seeing, and can’t take it anymore.

“Fuck you,” Dean mutters at himself.

Sam can’t even add another word before Dean hurries for the bathroom as quickly as the swaying world around him allows.

Sam follows, knocking with his fist against the door twice. “Dean!”

“Dean.”

Dean stands in the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. He turns to the door knowing Sam stands on the other side, listening.

“Fuck off,” Dean yells.

After another few moments Dean hears Sam walk away from the door, eventually going to sleep. He spends the rest of the night alternatively hugging the porcelain goddess and drifting to the howl of the storm outside, hating himself more than anything else. This mess is just another one in a long line, one more reason that makes all Dean feels bad and wrong.

The next morning Dean is hungover and Sam is not talking. There is a bruise forming around the corner of Sam’s mouth, and he’s wearing one of his bitch-faces. This means Sam won’t talk because Dean is an ass for a few days or so, then things might blow over with the next gig, or with the help of some awkward talk. Anyway, it will give Dean some time to get his head back in order.

 

**4**

  
So, if it doesn’t start there in that stormy, ugly night, at the very least the weather is what causes the roadblock and brings them to this point in history. In retrospect, Dean doesn’t care what the hell started it; really, he just wants it to go away.

“The bridge across the river was destroyed,” the guy that mans the roadblock informs them. He is plump and well into his forties. The neon-orange vest seems a little tight around the shoulders when he moves and he’s hobbling a little as if his left knee is messed up. Dean guesses that the guy is a volunteer that the nearby town has hired to do this instead of posting their sheriff here, and counts the small blessings of an otherwise shitty day.

Dean has felt miserable since the moment he opened his eyes in the bathroom this morning. He is not just hungover, but sort of emotionally tired in a way that is likely to leave him hollow and exhausted for days. All Sam has said today were short, emotionless orders of where to drive; or to point out possible other routes to take to get them out of the city and towards the mountains. He is pissed off, alright, and Dean isn’t in the mood to argue with him. Actually, all things considered, that sort of tension between them is exactly what Dean has wished for a while; no reason to look, no reason to talk, no reason to think too much.

That half of the mountains’ forests has decided to shed branches and leaves onto the roads also helps in a way. It offers something to be annoyed about other than Dean’s own stupidity.

“We turn around then,” Dean says easily and gives the volunteer one of his easy going but decidedly fake smiles.

Sam has his nose buried in the road map, tracing the lines with his fingers. His hair falls into his eyes and he blows them back out of the way before saying, “There’s another road about ten miles back that heads this way, maybe we can cross the river there.”

That actually is the longest sentence he’s uttered all day, Dean notes dully, and fixes his eyes back onto the volunteer.

The guy purses his lips and shrugs nonchalantly. “Won’t bring you much, that road is blocked with trees as far as I know.”

Sam scrunches up his face and looks back at the map. Dean doesn’t need to see his brother’s eyes narrowing to know what choice that leaves the two of them…retracing their steps back to the next best chance to take another road around this mess.

“Great, real great,” he mutters.

“Ah, no reason to worry, boys,” the volunteer continues and stands back up a little. “There’s another road leading off this one, maybe three miles down there.” He gestures in the direction Dean and Sam have come from.

“There’s a tiny town named Benison, my home you know, and we’ve got this little B&B for when the tourists come around for hiking and fishing. I’m very sure old Emma will have you a fine room until this mess is over.”

Dean shares a look with Sam, another first time thing of the day. Another motel room, another tight spot to be caught in and Dean internally cringes as Sam shrugs again.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Sam says. Dean has his doubts, but he is tired and hollow.

“Fine, thank you.” He smiles back at volunteer.

“No problem boys,” the volunteer answers. “Just tell Miss Emma Peter sent you.”

 

**5**

  
Dean is an idiot. He knows that, sometimes even works with it.

Okay, so he isn’t stupid. He is actually pretty smart, more than he lets on, but not in an emotional way. There, he is an idiot, period.

Sometimes, on the good days when there is no time for thinking, he barely registers that there are things in him he wants not to be there. Things he wants and feelings he has that he probably shouldn’t want and have, but has. And usually, when the world is falling down around him, he can ignore them pretty well – even more so when he finds a willing distraction.

And then the Impala got t-boned by that truck, and Sam shot the demon, and their dad died in the hospital and Dean almost did, too. All of that has given Dean way too much time to mull things over in his head, of the old times; missing their family like it was before Sam left. As Dean put the Impala back together, he made sure that all the little pieces that made her home were still there – right down to the Lego blocks in the vents. In that time he reconnected to his wrong, bad, no good side.

And now there are more bad days than good days.

Deep down, and he surprises himself with such a thorough analysis of his own messed up mind, he is probably just making the whole feelings mess bigger than it is because he is scared that Sam will leave him again. Dean isn’t sure he can survive that.

Worst is, sometimes it makes him unreasonably angry. He does and says things he doesn’t mean, and doesn’t want. He gets angry and the scene unfolds before him like he's watching a car crash. You shouldn’t look but can’t look away either. The bruise blooming around the corner of Sam’s mouth is the result of a moment like that.

**6**

Benison, Colorado is tiny at best. There are a few well kept houses, maybe two dozen or more spread out in the valley, and a main street that looks like there hasn’t been any significant change since the early ‘50s. Sure, the storm has left its signs as well, and a few more workers in neon-orange vests and yellow helmets are busy cutting up a fallen tree at the town common, but overall, it just looks well kept and clean, like so many other tiny towns that try to improve their income by welcoming a couple of tourists once in a while when the season is right. There is a diner and a small city hall, even a library, and a museum of local history, or so the signs standing at the tourist information point they drive past tells them in bold letters.

The B&B is a lovely, two story family home with a porch and a rocking chair in front; that is just at the far end of the main street. The parking lots are partly shadowed by man-high lilac bushes just beginning to bloom and young rose bushes. A wooden sign which proclaims it to be Hancock's Bed and Breakfast in curling, hard-carved letters stands to the other side of the lot.

“Guess that’s it,” Dean says peering out at the house and the garden.

Sam keeps up the silent treatment. He shoves the map back below his seat and gets out, closing the car door hard. Dean ducks his head, and drums his fingers across the wheel for a moment before he follows.

Inside the B&B it looks even more clean and happy. The smell of the lilacs follows them all the way inside and is still there as the two of them stand in awe for a moment and look around. There are doilies on cupboards and tables, even on the comfortable looking couches that stand in a sitting room to the left of the entrance hall. There even is a fat, red tabby that slinks past the two of them and jumps up on the counter, tapping her tail lazily. She wears a collar with a silver pendant on it, a circle with a half circle on top. She lays right beside a stand with flyers.  
Dean peers at the cat and it looks back with green, curious eyes. The cat tilts her head and looks over to Sam, making a gurgling sound as if in approval. The red tabby raises her head then loudly mews.

A moment later, an elderly lady appears from around the corner, as if the cat has called her in a way. She is drying her hands off with a striped towel, smiling widely. She's the type of woman that fills the room with her presence just by entering. Dean guesses she must have once been an impressive woman, strong and motherly, and still radiating a stubbornness he’s always liked in old ladies. She strongly reminds him of one of the grannies back at Pastor Jim’s church, Mrs. Thornton, always at the ready with chocolate cookies and hugs when little Sammy had been crying. Dean misses her fiercely sometimes, though he barely remembers her face.

This old lady though, seems not to be the kind that offers cookies; instead, she seems to be feeling close enough to her feline housemate that she is wearing the exactly same pendant on a necklace as her cat.

“Huh.” Dean raises his eyebrows looking at Sam as if to ask “You seen that? Weird, huh?”

Sam raises his eyebrows at Dean’s look, obviously not even knowing what Dean’s refering to. Then again, he has not looked at the lady that closely, busying himself with one of the flyers instead.

“Ah, welcome,” she says warmly, waving her hands in a wide, inviting gesture. “Let me guess, a king, right?”

“Eh…” Dean blinks put off.

Sam shakes his head fast, smiling awkwardly. “What? No… No… two singles please.”

“We’re brothers,” Dean clarifies. Just brothers. An aftershock of the rage and jealousy from last night washes over him and he licks his lips.

“Just brothers.”

There is a moment in which Dean is not sure what is going on. The red tabby’s tail stops its tapping and she quietly meows again. The old lady looks almost crestfallen all of sudden, but covers up her emotion quite quickly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you just sort of radiated…” The old lady looks from one of them to the other, then pastes on a wide, genuine smile. “You know, forget it, I am sorry.”

She hurries to hand them a key. “It’s our family room, big and bright, you’ll love it.”

“Great, thanks.” Sam takes the key this time and wanders off while Dean is left behind to pay for the room. He hands the Lady a credit card and smiles at her awkwardly for a moment before following his brother.

Their room is upstairs at the far end of the corridor. The room is not as big as their usual motel rooms, but the beds are nice and clean. The two single beds stand to each side of the window, a folded up cot stands in the corner by the bathroom door, and spring sun shines in through the windows.

“Why do people always assume we are, you know,” Dean asks as they enter. He takes the bed on the side closer to the door and drops his bag, then sits down with a deep sigh.

He isn’t so sure why he asks it. Maybe because it is the thing he always asks when people think they are a couple and something inside him wants to tickle a normal response out of Sam. Dean hopes for the usual remark when he throws sentences like that out there, but Sam doesn’t take the bait.

Sam rolls his eyes and claims his own bed.

“I’m taking a shower,” he declares and leaves Dean sitting there.

 

**7**

  
Sam is the one talking. Sometimes, he talks for the both of them. Without Sam’s words Dean doesn’t know how to speak in any human language. The worst Sam can do is not talk because, as much as Dean hates the chick flick moments and the discussing of everything and anything, without the constant voicing of thoughts and fears, Dean is alone.

Even if the two of them annoy each other to no end, they would rather yell at each other than stay silent for long. The morning after Dean went to hide in the bathroom, he expected Sam to try and talk it through with him even before they left the motel.

Sam didn’t. Instead, it’s the silent treatment.

Unless the two of them go their separate ways, which barely happens anymore since Sam is back from Stanford, the silence never lasts longer than a day before it comes to the unavoidable moment of talking. And if not that, it’s yelling and gesturing, sometimes even blows – but only when things gets really heated.

It feels like nothing fits together anymore when they aren’t hunting.

For now they are stuck in this town, at least for the night, and there is no hunt in sight to distract them in any way. Maybe he will find one tomorrow in a newspaper, or the day after, but until then, there’s nothing to do but to wait for Sam to talk again.

Dean closes his eyes and lies back on the bed, listening to the water of the shower, and drifts. He’s tired, emotionally exhausted and the sour taste in the back of his mouth makes him wish for something alcoholic to dull down the chaos in his head.

  


**8**

  
Evening comes and it starts to rain again. It’s only a minute or two to the diner down the street, so they decide to walk. Well, actually Sam decides to walk and Dean just follows in his tracks instead of taking the car. The lilac's smell is heavy and distracting in the wet air, almost like some sort of sedative that slows the world down around them.

The diner is as nice and clean as the rest of the town, and it smells of meat and spice as Dean enters. A sharp difference to the outside. A waitress walks past him loaded with plates full of delicious looking food and winks at him in a way that can only described as flirty.

Dean smiles back broadly. Without a hunt and without any other thing to concentrate on other than what is going on between him and Sam, the promise of a little flirt is more than welcome.

Sam sits down in a booth by the window and the smile he gives the waitress that puts the menu down in front of him is an act of courtesy only. Dean tries his best to make his smile a little more honest with the waitress that has welcomed him so friendly.

The waitress is a brunette in her early thirties and looking mighty fine. She wears a cream colored uniform, a white apron and the name tag on her shirt tells him that her name is Catherine. If things were different right now, and not as messed up, he would totally try to charm her not just for distraction’s sake.  
Even if the chances for sex might be slim, it’s not that kind of place and by the looks of it also not that kind of town. At the very least, he might get some free pie or a few extra fries. Even when Dean was small, he had always tried to charm the waitresses in hopes of some pie to share with Sammy.

“Thank you,” he says as Catherine hands him a menu. For a brief moment he notices that she wears a silver bracelet with the very same motive engraved into the metal than the Lady in the B&B wears, but discards the fact as unimportant simply because the ring she wears isn’t on the right finger to be a wedding band.

“Ah, you’re welcome, honey.” She smiles and pulls her notepad from her apron. “Now, can I get you something to drink first? We have great iced herbal tea. It's our special Spring mix.”

“A beer would be awesome,” Dean drawls, smiling up at her. The waitress notes the order down and looks at Sam.

“And you, dear?”

Sam eyes Dean from across his menu, bitchface firmly in place. “I’ll take the iced tea, thank you,” he says evenly.

Typical Sam. Dean contemplates irritating him some – his preference of eating healthy always works for a few remarks – but his brother’s expression makes Dean rethink the idea. It is too early for that.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” the waitress says. Dean had almost forgotten her and smiles back up at her.

“Not going anywhere,” he says a little smarmily and winks at her. She laughs and shakes her head as she walks away. And isn’t that just the distraction Dean has been asking for all day long.

Dean leans back in the seat to watch the waitress trail along the tables towards the end of the room. She sways her hips and he enjoys following every movement with his eyes. She has very fine legs, too, probably jogs or does some yoga. This is safe territory, this is awesome, this is normal, his brain says.

As Dean looks back up at Sam, his little brother has turned his head as well. When Sam turns back to Dean, Dean wriggles his eyebrows at him suggestively, but only gets a more intense bitchface in return.

“What?” Dean asks before he can stop himself.

Sam continues staring, but there is more. Sam’s big brain is obviously working hard at figuring something out, and oh God, Dean knows that face. He squares his shoulders and waits for it.

Sam doesn’t open his mouth. Instead, he slowly licks his lips and changes his expression. There is a scale Dean works with, which reaches from “embarrassed to have you as my brother” roughly up to “drop dead, asshole.” Right now, Sam’s face has morphed from “I’m pissed at you,” to “I think I figured you out and I don’t like it,” and boy, that’s bad news.

Dean squirms in his seat, but before Sam opens his eyes, the waitress returns. She sets down Sam’s tea first and Dean has to admit it looks quite delicious – like straight out of some TV commercial. Dean smiles at her as she sets down his beer.

“So, have you decided on your orders,” she asks next.

Sam orders some salad with chicken on the side and Dean the first burger on the menu and fries. He is not really hungry anyway.

“The kitchen is pretty busy so your orders may take a while.” This time she gives Dean another wink and a swing to her hips, downright invitingly, as she turns and walks away.

“Dean,” Sam snaps and stares at him from across the table as soon as she has left again. Dean’s eyes move instantly back to Sam. The programming to listen to this rests deep in his bones and will never stop forcing him to attention.

Sam curls his fingers around the glass of iced tea and leans forward, his hair falling in his face and shadowing his eyes as he says quietly, “It’s that, isn’t it?”

“What,” Dean asks blinking.

“The woman,” Sam says as if it should be very obvious. Sam jerks his head in the direction of the waitress. “It’s the woman,” he clarifies.

“You’ve been pissed because Kelly asked me out.”

And there we have the evidence that Sam is the smarter one of the two brothers. Shit. Dean scratches the back of his head for a second. For someone who prides himself in conning with the best of them, he’s sometimes depressingly obvious. Shit.

“Sam,” Dean starts but Sam’s harsh scoff cuts him off.

“Oh this is rich, man.” Sam crosses his arms across his chest. “Even for you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sam,” Dean answers, and pastes on a faint smile as the waitress walks past their table. Sam follows her with his eyes as well, his face saying something along the lines of “this is so fucking stupid, you jealous asshole.”

Dean shivers because Sam is so close to the truth that it sends a thrill down his spine, but so far away from the motivation behind it that it’s almost funny.

“That I got the girl, and you were so god damned pissed about it, that you got drunk.” And punched me, he scowls, but he doesn’t say that.

“That’s stupid, man,” Dean snorts in fake nonchalance. “She wasn’t my type, and besides,” he puts on a fake grin just for the sake of impression, “I was glad you got laid, honestly. You’re a total bitch if you don’t get some regularly.”

There we go, Dean thinks, annoy him; that always works as evasive strategy.

“Who’s the asshole if he doesn’t get some,” Sam grumbles. “And anyway Dean, if it bothered you so much, I didn’t do it.”

“You didn’t do what?”

And that sends a flood of relief through Dean. It’s such a rush, it’s almost nauseating. The room spins a little and Dean has to hold on to his beer bottle to keep his hands from shaking.

“We didn’t have sex,” Sam states.

Dean has to bite his tongue not to smile. An honest, wide smile of sudden, overwhelming relief. Mine, not hers. Yes. And in the next moment his brain comes back online, telling him in no uncertain terms what a bastard he is to even feel this ridiculously glad that the woman has not touched Sam.

“You seem surprised,” Sam watches him with careful, narrowed eyes.

“Yeah, well,” Dean trails off, his mind reeling. “I thought… well a guy has needs, the chick was hot.”

“Yeah, right.” Sam shakes his head and looks at the ice tea on the table-top. “I don’t think you thought anything, Dean.”

“I don’t know what the hell has been going on with you over the last few months, but if you don’t want to talk about it, at least don’t let it out on me,” Sam continues softer, less pissed sounding.

Dean would love to speak. He would start with how he misses Dad so fiercely still, that it hurts every day. How he has no idea what to do now that the demon is gone, and that he doesn’t really want to do anything other than keep on hunting so that no other mothers will burn on the ceilings of their baby’s nursery. That he always loved Sam but now loves Sam differently and a lot more, simply because Sam is all there is left, maybe because of a lot of other reasons too, and there is nothing that will keep Sam with him if Dean slips and lets the secret out.

Dean is pulled from his mind as Sam rises from his seat. The iced tea is half empty and Sam is obviously unsatisfied with Dean’s lack of reaction.

“I’m out of here.”

Dean watches Sam leave. Kept on his ass by the very same emotional exhaustion that has crippled him since Denver. Dean wants to get up but then the waitress is standing there, looking surprised at the sudden exit.

“Is he alright?” She asks, frowning down at Dean all emphatic. “What’s happened, sweetheart?”

Dean shrugs, staring at the table before him. “We had an argument.”

“Oh, poor thing,” she says softly, then reaching out, surprises Dean with a soft pat on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, really, you are such a sweet couple,” she adds. “Just give him some time.”

Dean hangs his head for a moment. Why the hell does everyone think of them as a couple, god damn it all. This is all so fucked up. He drags a hand across his face, pressing the heel of his hand against one of his eye sockets until it hurts.

She cancels their orders and brings him fresh cherry pie instead that tastes like salt and ashes. She also brings him a large glass of tea, but Dean doesn’t touch it.

Later, when he gets back to the B&B, Sam is not there yet. Dean has no idea where he could have gone in this town, and in this weather, but the little bitch will come back soon enough. He has nowhere else to go.

In retrospect, Dean will wonder why he has not cared for Sam’s whereabouts a little more at this point. Sam is his life and will always be his life; when he is missing Dean is missing a part of himself. So why has he not reacted at this point. Then again, hindsight is always 20/20.

**9**

  
Dean wakes with a start. He is still dressed and had fallen asleep leaning against the headboard of his bed. The last thing he remembers is staring at the door and playing with the knife he usually puts below his pillow. His mind has been reeling with the same mess of feelings and memories, and he wonders how he could even fall asleep. However, as exhausted and empty as he still feels, it’s not really a wonder at all when he thinks about it.

Dean sits up and blinks blearily at his watch. Something cannot be right though, because it is almost 8 in the morning and Sam is not back.

Panic doesn’t even come close to describe what Dean is feeling.


	2. PART II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the hits keep on coming.

** PART II: BLESSING **

_ You let me in,  
let me out,  
let me stand here in doubt,  
let me off,  
give me just one good reason not to go.  _

  
  
One Good Reason by Livingston

 

 

**1**

  
Sam’s bed is unused and his bag and laptop are still there. Dean looks out of the window and sees that the Impala is still where he had parked her.   
  
Sam is gone.  
  
He tries to call Sam, again and again, but the phone only rings and nobody ever picks up.   
  
His first instinct is to go down to the reception and ask about Sammy - maybe Sam has just taken another room because he needs some space. That has happened before. And he doesn’t answer his phone because he’s a little asshole about it, or in the bathroom, or asleep and doesn’t hear the ringing.  
  
Dean’s heart is beating loudly in his ears as he tries not to run down the stairs. Still, once down he nearly stumbles over the cat. The feline hisses and makes a beeline for the sitting room – where it takes refuge behind the legs of the old lady.   
  
“Uh, what’s the hurry,” she asks the cat, peering down then up as she takes notice of Dean. “Ah, hello, can I help you?”   
  
“Yes, sure…” Dean starts, unsure of how to approach this, then decides for the truth. It doesn’t matter what the old lady thinks. He only needs to know where his brother is. “My brother and I had a disagreement, and he didn’t come back last night, so I thought maybe he’s taken another room?”   
  
The old lady looks at him for a long moment and starts to smile. “Hm, no, he hasn’t, but listen, boy, I’m pretty sure he is alright, don’t you worry.”   
  
She can say that, she isn’t going crazy with what’s going on in Dean’s mind.   
  
“Maybe he’s just taking a walk,” the lady suggests. “I’ve got breakfast almost ready, maybe we can drink some tea together, and wait?” She suggests, “If he isn’t back soon, we can try and look around town.”   
  
Dean doesn’t want to stay, really. He doesn’t want to drink her stupid tea, and he really isn’t interested in any conversation that doesn’t involve how to find Sam. “Thank you, maybe later,” he hurriedly says and gives her not even the proper time to answer before he is out the front door and off the porch.   
  
Outside, he has not many options left.   
  
He can go to the diner and check if Sam might be there, maybe eating breakfast, or getting coffee. But why would he not answer his phone, then; a doubtful voice asks?   
  
Dean decides to try, and walks to the diner anyway. When he doesn’t find him there, he walks to the town common and searches there. He even tries the tourist information center, but there is no Sam to be found.   
  
He checks the library, and asks everyone he meets on the street if they have seen a guy tall enough to be a giant. Messy hair, probably unhappy and sulking, towering above anyone else.   
  
The answer remains no, nobody has noticed him. They all try to be helpful though, and that’s annoying all on its own. He doesn’t need half the fucking town putting their noses into this situation. He has no idea where to look though, and no idea where to search anymore.   
  
Finally, he decides to get back to the B&B and call Bobby, ask him if he can come and help with the search, or if Sam has called. He walks down the street and back to the B&B, taking two steps at a time in a hurry to get back in his room.   
  
Later, he blames the panic that makes him stupid and blind for not noticing anything strange at this point. Like, for example, the volunteer from the roadblock hiding behind the door jumping him.   
  
Dean goes down hard, the heavy man pressing him to the ground and immobilizing him as if he has learned it somewhere, maybe police or military. Dean struggles and curses, pushing up against the man to buck him off somehow, but he’s a lot stronger than he looked back at the roadblock.   
  
“Hurry up!” Peter yells. There are steps, and female voices.   
  
Dean feels a needle puncture the skin in his neck before warmth begins to flood his system.   
  
“That should do it,” an unknown female voice says and the volunteer lets finally go of Dean’s arms. Dean struggles to turn around, get up and kick out at the man, but his muscles are already starting to get sluggish and slow.   
  
The last thing he sees is the volunteer bending over to take a closer look at Dean, a necklace with yet another of those silver pendants falling out of his collar.   
  
The lights go out quickly after that.

**  
2**

  
There is something strange going on around him, but Dean’s molasses slow mind just can’t comprehend what. And for a long moment he doesn’t even really bother to worry. Maybe it is Sam who is wandering around their room, finally back, or someone moving in the room next door, or whatever. The house is old, the owner some slow old woman, it isn’t really important.   
  
This alone should alarm Dean that something is really wrong with him, but he feels by far too content and comfortable to move, let alone check. There is a bone deep contentment radiating from the base of his spine straight into every single muscle of his body that keeps him down and blissfully unaware of whatever is going on.   
  
A new, wicked sense of arousal sparks up his spine. Again, he doesn’t mind at all, and welcomes the waves of pleasure. It’s unlike other wet dreams he has had before, sharper and very close to the base of his spine.   
  
The feeling is spreading from a point of pressure, and at first there is discomfort, then it becomes different, and his cock fills slowly, pulsing with each wave of warmth. Dean jerks his hips forward and hisses as he feels his sensitive skin pressing against something rough and scratchy below him. It is not a bed. Another spike of pleasure makes his hips twitch and the wave of pleasure rolls along his nerves and skin. He wants to push back into the feeling, wants to have more, and whatever is going on, it is all too easy to just welcome the pressure that brings the good feeling.   
  
What really wakes him is the moment that the feeling leaves.   
  
“He’s all prepped and ready,” a female voice says a moment later, and he hears something snap that sounds like a rubber band snapping back into place.   
  
It is not a rubber band, and it has not been a wet dream.   
  
His eyes fly open and he blinks several times before the world comes into focus. Everything is spinning and not just from what he guesses might be some drug that must have been administered to him. All he sees at this angle is the base of a glass display case in which, when he remembers right, a few pieces of old porcelain cups had been on display.   
  
Slowly, he turns to the other side, trying with all his might to clear his head.   
  
He sees a woman in scrubs kneeling beside him, she smiles and has a pair of bunched up blue medical gloves in one fist. She looks like the midwife or local nurse or something. The snapping sound must have been when she took off the gloves.   
  
Oh crap. Dean shudders and twitches, clenching up his buttocks for confirmation of his suspicions, then closes his eyes. Creepy fucking perverted nurse. Awesome, just awesome. He feels all squishy and messy down there, can feel the sticky stuff all over his ass and the back of his legs.   
  
The nurse smiles at him, then reaches out and strokes along the base of his neck calming him down as if he were a little child or a wild animal about to take flight. Dean can’t take off, god knows he would try if he could move anything, but the fuzziness in his head and the afterglow of what Nurse Creepy might have done with him leaves his muscles too relaxed to operate properly. He feels violated and awkward, god damn it and angry enough to wish for his gun.   
  
“Don’t worry, young man,” she says and smiles kindly. “It’s just so you’re not getting hurt.”   
  
Fuck you, Dean wants to say. Instead, he lets his head fall back to the ground. He finds himself on the hardwood floor of the B&B’s sitting hall, lying belly down on a carpet – which explains the itch – and naked. The last part he had already suspected.   
  
The tabby sits by the couch not far away, watching him intently. And there are several other people in the room with him – both men and women. The B&B’s owner is there as well, wearing a floral wreath around her head and her necklace with the silver pendant. She talks to the waitress from the diner, and a woman Dean thinks he has seen on the street outside when they drove into town. All wear the same necklace and the flowers. It reminds him faintly of a wake, or party, just that usually there are no naked men, drugged up and molested on the carpet.   
  
Another woman comes from the direction of the dinner room, carrying two earthen pots and a towel which she sets down beside Dean. She kneels down on his other side, spreads out the towel, and together the two women roll him around on his back and sit him up against the side of the couch. Dean is half hard and boneless from the drug, so he just sits there unable to do anything.   
  
He collects what dignity there is left and tries to make his mouth work, as the women take up the bowls, saying, “Usually I’d expect dinner first, before we get to the naked part.”   
  
His words are probably a lot less coherent than they sound in his head, but understandable enough to make the woman, that had brought the bowls, giggle. She is blushing a little around her freckled cheeks. He guesses the girl hasn’t been a guest to many parties like this in the past, but wears the same necklace everyone else does.   
  
The creepy nurse shakes her head at her, calling her back to the serious business at hand. Nurse Creepy dips her fingers into her bowl and begins painting things across Dean’s chest. The other woman begins the same starting from Dean’s feet and moving toward his hips.   
  
When he thinks about it, the floral wreaths, the necklaces, the cat and the body paint, all of that, can only mean one thing, and he can’t believe how he could not have seen any of the signs before. Then his mind supplies him with the fact that there really had been no sign obvious enough to tell him anything, and even if there had been, Dean has been too deep in his own little world to have seen them.   
  
He hits his head against the upholstery of the couch, “You’re witches.”   
  
How could he be so blind? Fuck. Witches and they have his brother. Damn it.  
  
“Watch your tongue, young man,” Nurse Creepy says in a patronizing voice. “We’re no witches.”   
  
“We are all children of the Horned One.” The younger woman smiles proudly, and continues painting symbols up Dean’s side. Pagans then.   
  
“Yeah, you know, I don’t care,” Dean mumbles. “It’s all the same.”   
  
He tries to focus as well as he can on the important things, for example, where his brother is, how to get out of here, all of that. He swallows then asks, “Where is my brother?”   
  
“Where he is supposed to be,” Nurse Creepy says. For all Dean knows, that can mean anything. She paints a swirl of blue around Dean’s left nipple and smiles.   
  
“Don’t worry about him.”   
  
“Fuck you,” Dean growls. He wants to move but all he can do is flail his arms and wriggle his legs a little.  
  
The nurse sits back with a sigh, fingers covered in blue. “Can’t you hold still?”   
  
“What the hell have you done with Sam?” Dean tries to pull himself up, tries to shake off the dizziness somehow. “I swear, if you hurt him, I’m going to kill every single one of you with my bare hands.”   
  
There seems to be honest anger in his voice that makes the woman, who brought the bowls, look uncertainly at the nurse and back at him. The nurse is the more hands on of the two though, pushing Dean back against the couch behind him with the still clean heel of one hand.   
  
“Tonight we celebrate life, boy,” she says slowly, in a lecturing type of voice. “You are one half, and you will find the other half beyond the fire.”   
  
“You will unite with the Horned One, and be pleased,” the other woman adds enthusiastically. “It’s a wonderful ritual.”  
  
Ritual. The word cuts through the haze in Dean’s head. A ritual and Sam, where is Sam? Have they put him through some ritual too? Where is he? The panic and anger bubbles back up in Dean’s chest, and he starts to struggle in earnest. The adrenaline is eating up the drug slowly, he can feel it.   
  
“Stubborn boy,” the nurse huffs, no longer able to hold him.   
  
Dean is not exactly aware how, but in the next moment a handful of young men are there, holding his legs and arms still.   
  
“Stop that,” he howls. “Fuck you!”   
  
“Stop the struggling, boy,” the nurse says, heel of her hand still pressed to his chest. “This is meant to be. You will wander into the forest, you will find the Horned One and you will join with him. You were brought here to be part of the sacred couple. Things are meant to happen.”   
  
“Fucking witches,” he mutters.   
  
She almost seems sorry in face of his resistance and struggling. As if all of this might be a great, great blessing, something wonderful and good, and he should be happy, but he really isn’t.  
  
“This is meant to be.”   
  
  


**3**

  
  
Time flies and the drug slowly leaves his system. Dean could try and fight the men holding on to him, but it soon becomes evident that whatever ritual they have in mind – this meeting with the Horned One – is not going to happen inside the house. Outside, he has a better chance to run and hide, maybe get to a weapon of sorts, and find Sam.   
  
He stops struggling and Nurse Creepy takes that as a sign that he must have understood her message finally. Sometime later, the people in the room leave and he finds himself alone with the men, Nurse Creepy and the waitress.   
  
The last thing Nurse Creepy does is set a wreath of flowers on top of his head and pushes him up on his legs. He’s wobbly on his feet, as the world swirls and dances. He presses his eyes shut in a moment of vertigo and as he opens them again, he’s standing outside on the porch with what seems to be the entire town assembled on the street. They leave a path down the middle of the road that leads towards the town common and beyond.   
  
It smells of smoke and burning paraffin torches, and Dean finds it hard to breathe.   
  
He sways as they push him down the stairs. He doesn’t fall though, can’t hit the ground, even if he does stumble. All of the people reach out with their hands, eager to touch. There are so many women and men, even children, that some of their parents hold up to see him, and they are all close, all keep touching him as he is pushed forward across the town common and towards the fires.   
  
They push him past a house that a sign proclaims to be the town museum; he can read the letters in the light of the torches; and toward a clearing behind the building. Two large fires burn, their flames licking high into the night sky.   
  
Everything is too loud and there are too many people. The colors of the forest and the fire become more and more wrong and distorted the longer he looks.  
  
As they finally let go, Dean stands naked between the two fires. This is his chance to run, he understands, and looks back one last time at the assembled crowd of witches and their families; they even expect him to run.  
  
They start chanting and clapping, along to a melody.   
  
This is his moment to run, so he does what they want and takes flight.   
  
  


**4**

  
The world on the other side of the fire is brighter than it should be. The trees glow in an otherworldly light, the ground is covered in moss and soft grass, larkspurs stand below the trees, blooming in the same blue of Dean’s body paint, and lightning bugs swarm the air. The farther Dean tries to run, the crisper and clearer the air becomes and the more surreal is the forest around him.   
  
His mind clears further with every step he takes, but what his eyes see becomes more and more confusing.   
  
He will run, will find the road. He will sneak back into town while all of the people are busy with the fires; and find Sam, and then he will get out of here. He will find Sam. It is what he does, what he will always be doing. It is what he repeats over and over in his mind as he tries to get away from the chanting and the lightning bugs.

**  
5**

  
Dean hears the sound of water somewhere to his left and changes direction. If he follows the river, he might find the broken bridge and from there the road and a way back into town. As he gets there, however, he halts like a deer in headlights.   
  
There, at an idyllic looking bubbling brook, sits a creature unlike anything Dean has ever seen. There is no doubt: this is the Horned God Dean is supposed to encounter here. The God the witches mentioned. The God Dean is meant to have become one with.   
  
Jesus. He is beautiful.   
  
As he stands, evidently noticing Dean’s presence now, a swarm of lights lift from the grass in the clearing, illuminating the creature even more. His body is well muscled and strong, his skin pale in the strange glow of the night. Swirls of blue paint cover his body, rite spells and wards in unknown languages cross his arms, legs and chest.   
  
He wears a necklace close to what Dean has seen on the B&B lady and the waitress. On the silver disc is a ring and on top of this ring a half circle, pointing upwards with its two ends.   
  
Sammy would know the letters and the sign, Dean thinks. He remembers Sam and that he is still out there somewhere though, and Dean has to find him, not stand here and stare. Just, he can’t help it.   
  
The God wears a mask that covers the better part of his face, worn and blackened like old silver, and two ram horns crown his headdress of feathers and fur. Dean’s eyes travel up and down the impossible creature, and he finds that he’s attracted in a way he has only ever felt for one male before.   
  
Guilt washes over him like cold rain and what arousal that might have stirred at the sight of the God shrivels up within a split second. This moment of clarity is probably why he comes to a startling realization; the Horned God has a bruise on his jaw, sprawling in specks of red around one corner of his mouth.   
  
The Horned God standing before Dean, naked, glorious and unbelievably beautiful is Dean’s brother.   
  
This is Sam!   
  
Oh shit.

**6**

  
  
“Okay, Sam, this… is not…” Dean starts slowly walking backwards. The ground is soft and squishy beneath his feet, spongy and warm like a sun warmed patch of ground. And that’s a real stupid thought because it’s night and the sun went down hours ago. There is no possible way the ground could still hold any warmth, and anyway, as thick as the trees are here, as wide and dark and green the canopy above is, there is no real sunlight down here even at day.   
  
Wow, whatever the witches gave him is awesome stuff, real awesome stuff. He can’t stop pointing that out to himself, because man, it’s dark and wet and he shouldn’t see anything, but the colors turn more and more vibrant the closer Sam comes. And it’s almost as if leaves and flowers bloom where he steps.   
  
“Sam…” he mumbles again, waking from his momentary distraction. “Sam, let’s focus. These damn witches drugged us, and this,” he says gesturing around generously with a hand. “This is just some wicked hallucination, or whatever, just… just try to focus.”   
  
It’s like being in a cheap Disney movie, Dean thinks, and then understands that this can’t be good. Not at all.   
  
“Oh I am focused,” Sam says. His voice is deep and rough as gravel as he speaks, and it goes straight to parts of Dean that shouldn’t be half as responsive to his brother’s voice as they actually are.   
  
“Yeah, man,” Dean says awkwardly. Because, hello, Dean’s brother is tall and well built, and obviously on a completely different track than Dean right now. The half hard state of Sam’s quite impressive cock is all Dean needs to see to have no question anymore at all about the nature of what is meant to happen. Also, he should totally not be looking there.   
  
“I give you that.”  
  
“Don’t be scared, lover,” Sam says next and takes a step closer. “You are one half and I am the other, we are meant to be together.”   
  
He fucking glows like the ground and the trees do, otherworldly beautiful like a fucking fairy or, Dean has no idea what, but not human. Not anymore. Sam’s eyes glow but not in the demonic kind of way, just somehow different. Green as spring grass and hot as a fire. Dean’s so busy watching his brother’s naked body standing there and just, you know, glowing, that he doesn’t notice what Sam just called him.   
  
Until he does, and it hits him like another cold shower.   
  
“Yeah, about that,” Dean says, holding out a hand to stop Sam’s approach. It’s pointless and Dean knows it, but he has to do something to get this whole thing back under control. “This two halves becoming one thing is not going to happen.”   
  
Sam has the gall to smile. His mouth and chin are still the only thing visible below the golden mask, and the cat about to get the canary smile is every bit as creepy as the mask is intended to make it.   
  
“We are lovers, we’ve always been meant to be,” Sam says softly.   
  
“It’s not.” Dean takes another step back. “Because we’re brothers Sam, and we just don’t do that.”   
  
“Love knows no laws of man.”   
  
“Except it does,” Dean says as steadily as he can with Sam still coming closer and himself still backing away from him. “And I don’t love you that way.”   
  
What a lie. What a blatant and ugly lie. He has had it with the lies as of late. Dean has had thoughts like this on and off for a decade now, and he’s done his best to drown them with alcohol and frisky women, but that has never worked. Denver is just the best example for that.   
  
Sam actually chuckles, and there’s nothing human about his voice anymore. Somehow though, it is still Sammy deep down, and it makes Dean stumble in his effort to get away. Why the hell does he even laugh?  
  
“What? What is so damn funny?” Dean can’t help but feel annoyed. And that is a feeling he is far more familiar with in context with his brother.   
  
“You’re lying,” Sam says. “You’re always lying to yourself, lover.”   
  
The word ‘lover’ has Dean stumbling once more and when he falls, he goes down hard. The soft, spongy ground welcomes him like a really nice and comfortable bed. He actually bounces slightly as he impacts.  
  
Sam moves in a way that is graceful and intimidating as he kneels down, knees left and right of Dean’s thighs. He’s breathtakingly beautiful, even with the mask obscuring half of his face.   
  
Dean still has some part of his brain working though, which is a little miracle since all the blood has evidently gone south to his cock. He waits until Sam bends forward just a little more, probably to kiss Dean, or do something else entirely wrong and inappropriate, then smashes his fist against Sam’s jaw as best he can.   
  
It’s the second time in three days that he clocks his brother one, and just like the first time, he runs from the look he gets in return.

**  
7**

  
Dean is not afraid, but this is a hunt and he’s the game, and as much as he wants to stay with his brother now that he has found him, Sam’s the hunter.   
  
So Dean runs.   
  


**  
8**

  
Dean runs as long and as fast as he can, but no matter how far he thinks he’s run, or how often he changes direction, he always ends up back at the clearing with the bubbling brook. Sam still is somewhere around, either tracking Dean’s steps or watching him from the shrubbery. Dean can practically feel Sam’s eyes on his skin; smell the earthy musk of the body paint.   
  
He takes a shuddering breath to calm his nerves and bring his heart rate down.   
  
And then, without a sound or any warning at all, Sam is upon him.   
  
Dean lands on his hands and knees on the spongy ground, barely able to keep himself from falling on his face, as Sam blankets him from behind.   
  
Suddenly there is warmth all around him instead of the cool night air and hot breath ghosts across the back of his neck where nothing but cold sweat had been before. The weight and the sensations are too much for a moment, and his arms give out, but Sam catches him.   
  
The Horned God has slung an arm around Dean’s middle and spread his large hand across Dean’s heart to haul him back up from the ground. Sam holds him securely and safe, pressed up to against his front and Dean can do nothing but go limp and take the wave of happiness coming over him at the amount of skin on skin contact that is going on. Part of his mind screams at him to get a grip and move the hell away, get back to his feet and keep on running, the rest just feels like he is exactly where he belongs. Always has.   
  
“Careful, lover,” Sam whispers into the side of Dean’s face.   
  
Sam’s thumb strokes across Dean’s nipple, again and again, comforting him but also spiking new currents of heat, that flood Dean’s system.  
  
“Jesus, Sam,” Dean breathes. “You’ve got to stop.”   
  
Dean’s voice sounds rough and broken. He finds his throat has gone dry from the running and licks his lips, then he swallows and tries again with a clearer voice.   
  
“You’ve got to stop this.” His throat is too dry and his voice cracks. “Fight it.”   
  
“There is nothing to fight, lover,” Sam says softly. “This is meant to happen. It was from the beginning.”   
  
Sam manhandles Dean around so that he can pick him up easily and carry him across the clearing to where Dean had first seen Sam. There he lays him down carefully, spreads him out like a fine dish to be devoured, on the soft, mossy ground.   
  
Shit, shit, shit, Dean thinks, just move, run, whatever, just go. But Dean can’t.   
  
There is no getting away anymore at this point and deep down Dean knows. Sam must have seen the line of thought crossing Dean’s mind because he starts to grin like a shark about to have a large bite out of his prey. Sam licks his lips and Dean swallows, shivering at the sight. What might Sammy be able to do with those lips? Another image Dean’s wicked mind brings up that he doesn’t want to see.   
  
“Sammy,” Dean croaks and whimpers slightly as Sam crawls up his body.   
  
Sam trails kisses up across Dean’s stomach, left and right and left again, along the blue lines the stupid witches have drawn, up from Dean’s groin to his throat.   
  
“Relax, lover,” Sam says against his skin. Dean moans, mouth falling open without any control of his side, and Sam uses the moment to his advantage. He closes the distance between their lips and hungrily licks into Dean’s open mouth, kissing him in the filthiest way Dean has ever had the pleasure to taste.   
  
And Dean kisses back. He presses up against the body of his brother, and it is easy, too easy, to fit together just the right way.   
  
This – the filthy kiss, the press of hips to hips, the sudden lining up of their hard cocks – is nothing brothers should do with each other, never; and still, Dean finds himself thinking that it also is the best thing they could ever have done with each other. He doesn’t even mind the mask or the fur and the feathers.   
  
Deep down, he knows that even in the best of cases Sam is drugged up to the gills and might be under the influence of a spell. In the worst case this isn’t Sam at all but some pagan god having his wicked way with Dean, and no matter what the case is, Dean also knows right here, right now, he doesn’t have the power to care.   
  
It is not even remotely funny how quickly Dean surrenders to Sam’s touch.   
  
Sam kisses and licks, touches and explores, and Dean lets him do whatever he wants, whatever way he wants it. Dean is just a doll, manhandled into the right position, and he enjoys it.   
  
Dean can feel so much, too much. This is the best trip ever. Sam is all over him, all there and too hot and too much. There are Sam’s hands, large and strong, one sprawling wide across Dean’s chest right above his heart. He feels secure and protected and he just lets go of everything, his feelings, his doubts, the little voice in his mind screaming bad, bad, bad at him. He closes his eyes and leans back against Sam, practically guiding Sam’s cock as it lines up to Dean’s ass.   
  
“Let me take you, Dean,” Sam whispers hotly against Dean’s neck. Dean feels the mask and the fur in the way, the smell of the old metal washed off of the mask with Sam’s sweat. For a moment the hand on Dean’s chests vanishes and Dean’s eyes fly open in surprise.   
  
What he sees is the mask with the horns landing on the ground not far away. Then Sam is back, all there, and no longer restricted in his movements by the horns.  
  
“Lover,” Sam says softly. “Dean. Dean. Dean.”   
  
“Jesus,” Dean gasps as Sam’s hand returns, trailing down Dean’s stomach and towards his hard cock. Sam brushes along Dean’s heated flesh, pressing it up against Dean's stomach. It’s too good to be true.   
  
“Let me fuck you,” Sam breathes. “Let me.”   
  
There is a voice in Dean’s head that wants to point out that this is wrong, the rest is all systems go on Sam’s request. Sam can fuck him and take him whatever way he wants.  
  
“Yes,” Dean gasps. “Fuck, yes.”   
  
Thanks to the creepy nurse, Sam has an easy game. Which is a whole new set of creepy because it means that this is what they meant to happen all along, although Dean doesn’t think of that in this moment. All he feels is how Sam’s fingers worm their way into his body. Running and adrenaline have tightened Dean up again, almost completely undoing what Nurse Creepy has started, but Sam patiently works him open again and spreads the lube from deep within his body with a patience that is nothing but torture. Dean doesn't even want to know how much lube the creepy nurse had to put in there to begin with that there is enough to make it feel this good.   
  
It feels strange and intimate, and Sam’s ministrations are just the foreplay for what comes next. The stretch, and burn, as Sam slides in is barely lifting Dean from the deep pleasure in which his mind swims at the moment.   
  
“Fuck Sammy,” Dean begs, “Sammy.”   
  
He repeats his brother’s name over and over again. It might be a request for forgiveness or a promise to do anything Sam wants as long as he never stops what he’s doing right now.   
  


**9**

  
The next morning is bright and cold, and displays the truth of what has happened with merciless harshness. Dean wakes with a start, resting on his side facing Sam. The both of them still naked, the blue body paint smudged all over, with fingerprints, and the crusted dirt on their knees leaves nothing to the imagination of what they might have done the night before.   
  
Dean remembers everything in crystal clarity, can even taste Sam still on his tongue. The drugs or spells have lost their power, and here, now, it’s just Dean and Sam, no longer the Horned God and whatever part Dean was supposed to play.   
  
Dean is pretty sure that this cannot get any worse, but then Sam wakes, and it does.


	3. INTERMISSION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's mind is a dark and dangerous place.

 

You know there will be days when you're so tired that you can't take another step,  
The night will have no stars and you'll think you've gone as far as you  
will ever get  
But you and me walk on  
Cause you can't go back now

 

~ Can't Go Back Now by The Weepies  
  


****

**INTERMISSON**

****

 

****

  
Although Sam no longer has visions, some of his dreams still have that strangely overly realistic touch to them that makes them just that little bit more than they should be. Just that little too soft and too bright, and sometimes still so real that he cannot keep them apart from reality.   
  
As he stands in her living room, in his mind, Sam can’t even remember why he said yes to Kelly’s invitation in the first place. He is not the type to just have some fun with women he will never see again – the no-strings-attached deal just seems more of a Dean thing than a Sam thing.   
  
Sam insists to himself that it is not running when he leaves quietly while she changes into something more comfortable, but it probably is. And that he tries his best to cover up his early departure, and the questions an early return might raise, by parking somewhere in a dark alley for a few hours before returning to Dean, is most likely another sign that Sam is running from something.   
  
But what Sam really doesn’t understand about all that has happened in the past few days is why he is even thinking about this right here, right now when he should focus on more important things.   
  
Sam’s cold, and sore, and when he opens his eyes, he can’t see anything but thick lush greenery above. The trees are tall and let barely any light through, which explains the cold, but not why Sam is naked and covered in smudged blue body paint. Instinct tells him to find his brother and find out what is going on, exactly in that order.   
  
“Dean?”   
  
As Sam turns his head and sees his brother, equally naked and dirty, he remembers a whole lot of other things - how he had gotten dizzy and had to sit down, before he fell down, on a bench in the town common; how he tried to call Dean on the phone because the dizziness must have come from something someone slipped him; how someone then plucked the cell right out of his shaking hands, and everything turned dark. What comes afterwards is a mess of surreal pictures of people chanting, of body paint being applied to his naked skin, and of a terrible horned mask set upon his own face.   
  
Everything that comes after that terrifying moment is shrouded in a golden mist, as if for a certain amount of time he had been possessed, or at the very least, influenced by a something.   
  
“This is meant to be,” he recalls that influence whispering. “This is meant to be. Do not be afraid of what will happen. It is what has always been foretold.”   
  
A hunter of unimaginable speed and virility showed him the story of a union between two souls. Of a hunt that run in a never ending circle repeated with a new couple of the hunter God's children every year in search of a union between the God and his lover.  
  
And Sam was willing to buy into what that influence had told him, willingly followed the power of the mask, and just went with the program. He went into the forest, he waited for his other half to arrive, and he engaged in the hunt to claim them. The hunter took his game and the two souls united as it had been foretold.   
  
The reality of what has happened crashes down on Sam like an ice cold shower which snaps him with brutal force back into reality. It is such a shock that he presses his eyes shut in pain.   
  
Shit. Sam closes his eyes for a long moment. He slept with his brother. Not only that, he jumped his brother, fucked him on the forest floor like two rutting animals in heat. He can see it all too clearly in his mind.   
  
Sam opens his eyes again, looking at Dean. His brother resembles a frightened animal that reins in his emotions as quickly as he can when their eyes meet. Sam has seen this type of behavior before.   
  
“Dean?”   
  
“I’m here,” Dean says with a soft voice. Sam wants to say a lot more. I’m sorry, for starters. How could I do this to you? Dean however, is on his feet and moving long before Sam can open his mouth.  
  
“Come on, get up, we need to get out of here.”   
  
Dean is already starting to walk away from Sam. It’s the beginning start of a pattern. And it’s the first time Sam is there to follow it right from the start.


	4. PART III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep on Running Dean.

**PART III: UNITY**

 

_Save me from myself  
I can´t relate  
We´re mouth to mouth  
And still I suffocate  
There´s nothing left  
Inside for me to break_

_ Save me from myself _

  
~ Save Me From Myself by Vertical Horizon   
  
  
  


**1**

  
The worshippers are gone, so are the fires, and all sense of direction. Dean stoically looks ahead and occasionally downwards so as to not fall on his face because of the roots and branches the storm scattered on the ground. He does not look back at Sam though, not once.   
  
Dean cannot even look at himself. There is smudged paint everywhere, even on his cock and thighs. If he looked in a mirror right now, he would see the bruises where Sam has sucked them into the flesh of Dean’s throat, and fingerprint sized marks underneath the paint on his hips. However he must ignore all of that for now, fully aware that ignorance will not erase the evidence of what has happened.  
  
The two of them are cold and sore, and it’s still priority number one to get out of this forest and back into some clothes before they freeze their asses off, but later, when there will be time to think, Dean is sure, everything is going to go to hell. This last night will be the last straw. Sam will leave.   
  
There is no doubt.   
  
Why should he stay in a life where it is possible to be violated and fucked up in situations like this one? Truthfully, no sane person would stay if they had the choice.   
  
He doesn’t dare look into Sam’s eyes, now; even less than when things were really bad before.   
  
“Dean?” Sam is trying to talk about this. Talk it out. Solve the problem. Dean doesn’t want to do that, though. He knows what Sam will say and right now there are other things to do first.   
  
“I think the road is that way,” Dean says and points to a patch of forest that seems brighter than the gloomy half-dark around them. At the very least there might be a clearing, maybe a hiking trail to follow back into civilization.   
  
Dean doesn’t exactly know where they are going; he just guesses that now that the night is over, there might be a way out of the forest. After all, the strange magic gloom has gone, too.   
  
Sam eventually catches up to [his brother] Dean. He clasps his hand around Dean’s upper arm and spins him around.   
  
“Dean, what happened?”   
  
Dean stands there for a moment, Sam’s large hand holding on to his upper arm, and just stares. The warmth in the pit of his belly, the affection and love – oh God, what a word, so wrong, wrong, wrong – are still there, deep below the guilt and self-loathing going on inside his head. This close, Sam looks far too young in comparison to how he looked last night. Dean can fucking feel the evidence of what happened last night in the form of his sore ass with every step he takes.   
  
“Some bloody Pagan worshippers put a fucking spell on us,” he curses and pulls his arm from Sam’s grip. “That is what happened. Now get a move on, we have to find a way out of here!”   
  
“Dean,” Sam calls out, but Dean has already started toward the brighter area in the distance. After another moment of hesitation, Sam follows, giving Dean some distance. Who knows what Sam can remember, what he thinks has happened, what reasons are making Sam give Dean some space to walk this off.   
  
Dean chuckles bitterly to himself. Walk it off, sure.   
  
Isn’t it hilarious? Fate, the bitch, just throws Dean right into the worst situation he can imagine – a situation in which he gets exactly what he always wanted – and with doing so, makes it all even more fucked up. And even better, it’s no longer just in Dean’s head; it has actually happened.   
  
He is so deep in it though, so deep into the thoughts of self-hate and guilt; that he doesn’t even really notice how he crosses the small clearing he was headed for and walks on, right through a thick patch of shrubbery and onto the road.   
  
And there she is: the Impala.  
  
Black, beautiful, and the only real home they have ever had. The thought of any of the pagans driving her fills Dean with a sharp feeling of disgust, but he’s glad that she stands here. He doesn’t even want to know why the pagans parked her right there, almost as if they had known from the start that it would be here where the two of them left the forest.   
  
The key is in the ignition, and their bags on the backseat. The clothes both had been wearing are folded in to piles on the front seat, freshly washed and ironed. Their cleaned boots are wrapped up in translucent plastic bags, sitting on top of the piles.  
  
“Sam,” Dean calls out over his shoulder. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”   
  
Within minutes the two are back in their clothes with Dean behind the wheel. He had dressed methodically and without looking up and over towards Sam. As much as he wants to, Dean is aware that they cannot return to the town with the pagans right away. As much as Dean wants to waste the whole lot of them, he can’t, not now, and not with only Sam at his side.   
  
There is no sign of the roadblock as they leave, and the bridge stands. They just drive and don’t speak for the entire time that it takes to leave the mountains, although Sam certainly tries.   
  


**2**

  
The two of them must look like something out of a horrid freak-show as they check into the next best hotel, after crossing into the next state. The place is small and dingy in a way that leaves your skin crawling with disgust. For Dean, it feels like the type of place people like him should make their living at: dark, dirty and full of filth.   
  
“Two rooms,” Dean says and puts the fake credit card down on the counter. The man behind the counter eyes the smudged paint on Dean’s fingers critically, and licks his lips.   
  
“That’s $190” he says and Dean just pushes the card across the wood surface without much care for the price.   
  
“We’ll take one room with two singles instead,” Sam pipes up from behind Dean’s shoulder. Dean tries very hard not to shrink away from Sam’s presence. The memories of last night are still too vivid in his mind and too fresh for his body to be able to take any form of closeness at all. Hence the need for two rooms, for distance.   
  
It is not so much because of Sam. It's because Dean can’t trust himself anymore with what he will do now that he knows what it feels like to be with his brother. Besides, with what has happened, Sam will want his distance. Dean just knows. The whole thing has been wrong and creepy, and everything Dean had always yearned for in a way – minus the creepy, borderline non-consensual sex, of course.   
  
“That’s still $190,” the guy behind the counter says and takes the card.   
  
Dean doesn’t need to turn to know that Sam is glaring. In any other case, Dean might just take his credit card back and aim for a cheaper place, but right now Dean pretty much doesn’t care what the clerk thinks or if he has to pay a thousand dollars to get a chance to wash the paint off. He’s too busy shouldering through the mess going down around him. All he wants is to drink himself into a coma and hope this freakish nightmare is over by tomorrow.   
  
“We’ll take it,” he says and mutters at his brother, “Don’t be such a bitch, Sam.”   
  
  


**3**

  
It’s like walking around on eggshells. Dean leaves Sam the first shower, gives him space and shuts the hell up. It hurts so god damn much, but he can’t even really look at his brother as long as he is still wearing the blue paint below his clothes.   
  
Sam seems like a beaten puppy, and hell, Dean can kind of relate to that. The both of them are confused and hurt and the night comes like a heavy blanket to suffocate them both. Sam is usually the talkative one, but what happened last night has shut him up, too.  
  
It’s one of the worst nights Dean has ever spent in a motel room with his brother. It’s a feeling as if someone is peeling off his skin inch by inch with a set of pliers as he stands under the shower and scrubs off fingerprints that just won’t go away. And even after the paint is long gone down the drain, Dean can’t for the life of him look Sam in the eyes.   
  
“Night, Dean,” Sam says. The words are the first attempt at conversation since the two of them checked into the motel.  
  
Dean lies on his side, watching the lights through the window and trying not to think, or talk. A billion things scream around in his mind like a flock of screeching birds, and even when Sam finally settles down, Dean doesn’t.   
  


**4**

  
Dean holds on to normal – their normal, anyway – like it is a lifeline and he is drowning in the ocean. He is out of the motel room the moment the sun is up and gets them coffee. It's raining like the end of the world is coming, but Dean doesn’t take the Impala to the coffee shop down the street, instead he walks. He needs the fresh air and the cold rain hitting his face when he looks into the sky. In the end, the coffee place isn’t even his first stop. There is a newspaper stand further down the street, where several people are huddling under the roof, pretending to stare at papers instead of hiding from the rain.   
  
Dean picks up the local newspapers, rolls them up and stuffs them under his leather jacket. For a while, he stands there under the small roof of the stand and watches the cars and people all around him, wondering. Are they as fucked up as he is? Have any of them even the slightest idea of what is going on around them each day and night?   
  
Probably not. He falls in line with them just fine, though, and rarely sticks out in the masses, but deep inside he’s done things and seen things that they never will. He has slept with his brother, under a spell, or drugs, or whatever, but it is the same no matter which way he looks at it. This mess, this big irreparable mess stands between them now. It makes him sick.   
  
The worst thing about it is, though, that these worshippers have given him exactly what he wished for. The type of closeness brothers shouldn’t share, and Dean loved it. He took every second of contact in greedily and can still feel Sam’s hand across his heart, warm and secure, every fucking time he looks at his brother.  
  
There is not much he can do about how he feels or what has happened, he can only hope to avoid the mess it has caused somehow.   
  
The coffee shop is packed full with people getting coffee before work and Dean waits in a quiet little corner of the shop until most of the commuters have their to-go cups and muffins. He is fully aware that he's just trying to avoid going back to the motel for as long as possible.   
  
He goes through the newspapers in hopes of finding something, anything, really, and almost forgets to bring the coffee back with him when he finds an article describing how students keep on moving out of an apartment building because shit keeps on happening. Whispers, people pushed down stairs, shadows, all things the police believes to be nothing but jokes. It’s not even that special, just a bunch of scared students exaggerating about what is probably nothing.   
  
And if he exaggerates somewhat on the details the newspaper gives, Sam doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t comment on a lot of things. Sam looks as if he is onto something, though, as if he is researching something; just that this time ‘that something’ seems to be Dean.   
  
  


**5**

  
The apartment complex is old and not particularly well kept. It’s just one town over, so Dean throws himself into the hunt with surprising vigor, and drags Sam out directly after proposing they check it out.   
  
A small group of young women walks down the stairs, with their baskets full of laundry under their arms, and Dean falls, thankfully back, into a well rehearsed pattern of waggling eyebrows and smirking. He flirts with the ladies and asks them for what they might have noticed, while Sam just sort of looms from a distance.   
  
“Aw, that’s just my brother,” Dean says and shrugs his shoulders. “He’s kind of shy sometimes.” The nonchalance is so badly faked that even the girls pick up on the fact that something is wrong. Dean hedges their questioning looks with all the skill of someone who cons people for a living. They talk about the case. Banter awkwardly.  
  
Sam just watches him, barely speaking at all. It’s not what Sam usually does, but then, the both of them are off their usual game.   
  
And even if the spook turns out to be nothing but an annoyed former tenant that doesn’t like the students now sharing the flat he once so lovingly renovated, it serves as a distraction for a day or two.   
  
There is only one moment as they dig up the former tenant in the graveyard where it actually feels like nothing has happened.   
  
Dean makes a comment about the name, Sam rolls his eyes. Dean throws paper and Sam rock, and so Dean ends up digging up the dirt while Sam holds the light for him.   
  
His brother even laughs at a quip Dean makes.  
  
Dean makes the mistake to almost relax.  
  
But the moment is gone as soon as Sam holds out his hand to help Dean out of the hole he’s dug up. Dean takes it and finds himself pulled up and out of the hole just like so many times before, but then he is too close to Sam and that last night is still too fresh.   
  
It only gets worse after that.   
  


**6**

  
Dean can feel Sam’s eyes on him practically 24/7. Sam is working up to a way to get Dean to talk and subsequently digest the whole thing that has happened between them. Dean knows the talk will be coming. It’s only a matter of time. He counts the hours and keeps his eyes peeled for distractions of any shape or form.   
  
It can only work for so long and he knows it.   
  
When Sam finally starts to voice all of the questions that have accumulated behind his eyes, like the very same storm that started the whole thing, there are no barriers left to hold the emotions back.   
  


**7**

  
It’s the 6th of May. The rain has stopped and the bushes in front of their current motel’s parking lot bloom yellow and white. The wind swirls the blossoms in the air and peppers the Impala’s hood and roof. It’s beautiful, but the air between them is tense enough to be cut with a knife.   
  
They dance around each other, for lack of a better term, and Dean is getting jumpier with every single one of Sam’s moves. After another hour of aimlessly browsing in the internet and a conversation with Bobby on the phone that basically consists of commenting on weather and the disappearance of some of Bobby’s liquor stash, Dean decides that it’s time for something to eat.   
  
Sam’s head snaps up from the notepad in his hands the moment that Dean gets up.   
  
“Where are you going?”   
  
“Getting us something to eat,” the older Winchester answers and shrugs into his jacket.   
  
Sam stands. “I’ll come with you.”   
  
“Nah,” Dean says. “I’m a grown up boy, Sammy, I don’t need a babysitter.”   
  
“I know what you're doing.” Sam crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his brows. Oh, that can’t be good. “You're running.”   
  
“Oh, come on, Sam.” Dean huffs and shakes his head incredulously.   
  
“Look Dean, I’m not saying what has happened hasn’t thrown me for a loop, but we need to talk about this before it gets any worse.”   
  
“There’s nothing to talk about. And can you sound any more like a chick, dude?” Dean scoffs and heads for the door.   
  
“Dean, we need to talk about this.” Sam moves in front of the motel room door, tall and resembling the creature in the forest so much so that Dean has to look away. He is angry.  
  
Dean tries to pretend to roll his eyes instead of showing the fear that truly is there, but Sam is not buying it.   
  
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Dean tries to side step his brother, worm his way around his brother’s massive body and out of the door. He needs a drink, or ten, right now, or he might explode.   
  
“We slept with each other, Dean.” Sammy is all matter of fact. “We had sex,” he clarifies unnecessarily. Dean cringes at the words.   
  
“Dude,” Dean hisses angrily, as if he wants to keep Sam’s words a secret in front of a non-existent audience. “Don’t call it that.”   
  
“But that is what we did, Dean.” Damn Sam and his sensitive feelings crap. Damn him and his urge to talk things through to solve them where ignorance works so well otherwise. Which is a lie. Dean knows he should finally stop lying to himself about a lot of shit and begin to cope. If he only could.   
  
“Not talking about it.” Dean grunts and steps back, right up into Sam’s personal space. If this is a battle of wills, Dean can be just as stubborn a son of a bitch as Sam. He’s practically the master of stubborn. “Now get out of the way, man,” Dean snaps and tries to shove Sam aside.   
  
Sam knows how to handle Dean from decades of mock-fights and drills, and blocks Dean’s attempt to shoulder him out of the way. Dean ends up pressed against the door with Sam at his back. One of Sam’s hands curls around Dean’s wrist, the other ends up wrapped around Dean’s body to block his brother’s movement.   
  
“Let go of me,” Dean growls; and struggles against his brother’s grip, he elbows Sam in the ribs and both stumble back. Sam holds on for dear life though and the two of them end up hitting the edge of the bed with their legs.   
  
“We need to talk, Dean!” Sam holds on as Dean tries to buck him off, and they fall.   
  
Sam ends up on top of Dean, one arm wedged in below his brother. It’s a repeat performance of how the Horned God calmed Dean down in the forest, and it has the exact same effect on Dean’s traitorous body now. God fucking damn it, but he gets hard. Dean fully blames some flashback to that moment of drugged pleasure for it, blames all of the impossible closeness the two of them have lived through on the road, and blames that he loves his brother far too much in any sense of the word.   
  
Dean tries to get away, really, he does. And that struggle is how Sam ends up finding out anything. Not because of words. No. Dean has managed to keep it all inside for all these years. It’s Dean’s body that betrays him in the end, as they end up body on top of body, facing each other, and so intimately close that it’s too much.   
  
Dean licks his lips, eyes flickering to Sam’s own. There is barely any space left between the two of them and Dean can’t help it anymore. His heart is beating like a flock of wild birds wanting to spring free from his chest and his throat has closed up, not allowing him to breathe. He is pretty sure that every emotion he has ever regretted having is right there, readable in his wide, green eyes.   
  
Sam frowns, eyes darkening in bewilderment.   
  
“Dean?”   
  
Dean can almost hear the things click into place in Sam’s head. Sam is smart. His Sammy is the smartest man Dean knows, and God help him, even that is a turn on right now.   
  
“Get off of me,” Dean growls and shoves Sam’s body off of him with all the strength he has. Sam flails and falls on his ass on the ground. And again, for what feels like the millionth time in his life, he shoves Sam off as hard as he can and leaves the room. He doesn’t even take his car or care if Sam follows, he has to leave.   
  
Dean Winchester is damn good at not being found when he doesn’t want to be found.   
  


**8**

  
Dean walks for an hour until his fingers go numb from balling his fists so hard that his nails leave marks in his palm. He walks past closed shops, boarded up houses and even past a bar proclaiming to have the best beer in the entire state. The air tastes of smoke and piss as he stands in front of the place, staring up at the sign.   
  
There in the flickering neon light of that sign Dean finds the solution to his problem.   
  
Sam knows. Even if he doesn’t know everything yet, he at the very least is close to figuring all this shit out now. Sam is smart. He will think Dean is fucked up and wrong somehow. He will think that all the years of hunting have turned him crazy and wrong in the head. God, Dean has no idea what Sam will think, but no matter what it is, he knows he can’t keep on doing this to his brother.   
  
Most of all, he will not be able to see Sam leave. And now there is no doubt anymore that Sam will. The least Dean can do is give Sam that much.   
  
It’s the only good thing he can do, the only way to take care of Sam; letting him go.   
  
The decision is made.

** 9 **

  
The next morning is chilly and quiet. Fog lays low on the roads and covers the fields to the left and right. It’s all foggy and white, and the world looks like it ends a few yards away.   
  
Sam is asleep in his clothes on the bed, bottle of jack standing open on the bedside table. The keys to the Impala lay beside the bottle, right next to Sam’s open cell phone. Sam must have been sure that Dean would come back, if only to get his keys, but he has certainly not slept calmly. His sheets are bunched up and he looks sweaty and uncomfortable. Dean watches him for a long moment as if to take in all that his brother is. Very much like a man seeing someone one last time, desperate to create a lasting image to fall back on when the nights might get lonely and freezing out there.   
  
Dean lays out the credit cards and almost all the cash he has out on the nightstand between the beds and only keeps the almost maxed out card for himself. He will use it for supplies then find somewhere else to get money from.   
  
He picks up the Impala’s keys and holds them in his hand for a moment, as if to say goodbye, as if to ask her to take care of his little brother, and puts them on top of the money. If Dean can’t look out for Sam, the Impala will. She’ll be a good girl and keep Sammy on the road to wherever his future will bring him in the end.  
  
That’s some sort of reassurance Dean can work with.   
  
He leaves as quietly as he can and walks down the street with his duffel slung over his shoulder. Somewhere, a few minutes down the road, he sees a pickup truck, old and rusty, standing in an alley behind a flower shop.   
  
He leaves town and tries to never look back.   
  


**10**

  
It will take weeks before Sam will find Dean again.


	5. PART IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End is near.

**PART IV: STEEL**

**  
**

_It's all been done  
There's no where left to hide  
There's no where left to run  
And it's all gone  
It's all gone It's all gone  
And I, I'm a liar just like you and that's OK  
And I, I'm guilty just like everyone today  
And I, I'm a liar just like you and that's OK  
And I, I'm guilty, just like everyone  
Hold on to all of this history  
Nothing's new, it's all been ending  
Over, over, over again_ _  
_

~ Liar by Neverending White Lights   
  
  
  
  


**1**

  
Dean knows it is stupid. Still, the first thing he does after leaving Sam and stealing a car is drive back to Colorado. He approaches the problem like any other hunt, calm and methodical.   
  
He analyzes what the enemy can do, what their weaknesses may be, and he acts accordingly. He tries to remember how many people there had been as he was lead to the fires, how many men and women watched him at the fires, and no matter which way he turns it, deep down he knows there are too many of them to get them all.   
  
Besides, there were so many children in the crowd; even if their parents have turned to the dark side these kids are not to blame for what their parents might have done. It’s bad enough that they were there to witness the humiliation.   
  
Unhelpful as Dean’s mind is, it continually shoves pictures of Sammy his way. Chubby little Sam at different ages watching TV, doing homework, or annoying Dean ten ways from Sunday. God, it makes Dean smile, but cringe at the same time. All of this reminds him what being brothers means, and how Dean has broken that the whole set of rules the worst way.   
  
Still, he cannot kill children, but that doesn’t mean he cannot make sure they will not carry on their parents’ traditions.   
  
Maybe though, it’s easier than that.   
  
He has done a little research and has not found much about the Horned God the worshippers had chanted at. The sigil the women wore might as well just be some Wiccan nonsense, not serious witchcraft, and gives him nothing proper to follow at all; but the Horned God thing does bring him somewhere. He finds out just barely enough to know that the God is summoned in the forest and that this place might be the connection for the townspeople.   
  
The fires might have been the portal to the sacred ground of the God, but the true spot of power is the forest clearing itself.   
  
If he torches that spot, their power is gone, and despite all the shit they have done, that leaves them without power and without their god’s protection, but will not kill them.   
  
He has several gallons of gas with him and some explosives, certainly enough to blow up the patch of greenery just fine.   
  
The only problem is that he cannot find the town again.   
  
Dean drives all the way back to Denver. From there he tries to follow the route they had taken across the mountains and backtracks which ways they took and which they hadn’t.   
  
He gets hopelessly lost on the first day. Stops somewhere at the side of a lonely road and curls up on the seat, with his gun in hand and the phone turned off in his bunched up leather jacket below his head.   
  
The next day he fumbles his way back out and straight back to where he thinks he went wrong. Nothing.   
  
He does nothing else other than follow random roads to towns of all sizes, but never finds Benison again. He searches for two weeks, driving up and down the roads, even the gravely backwater roads that make him cringe as he eases the Impala over the rough terrain. He can’t find them.   
  
Goddamn pagans.   
  
He doesn’t give up. Never will.   
  


**2**

  
Dean keeps his phone turned off. Sam, wherever he is, knows how to help himself, he hopes, and doesn’t need Dean anymore. He hasn’t needed him since he went to Stanford, he doesn’t now.   
  
Still, it’s not only the thought of revenge that drives Dean on to find the town. It is not even the obligation as a hunter to make sure that they cannot put anyone else through this type of shit. Even the fact that Dean feels like he has been robbed of some sort of security that he cannot name, simply because they had touched him and manhandled him around like he was not more than a doll to be played with, something to fuck around with, is nothing in comparison to what his true motivation is. All of these facts have their part in it, sure, but the truth is, they are unimportant.   
  
What really drives him forward day in and day out is the very same thing that lets him turn off his phone, but not throw it away.   
  
It’s Sam and the fact that Dean has been forced to cross the line, he has been so scared of, with him. That Sam knows now how Dean feels, that Dean feels more than he should at all, and it might have been only a matter of time before disgust drives Sam away. It is just logical for Dean to run before Sam does.   
  
To take all the guilt with him and keep it away from Sam, and instead with the person who is so wrong inside to begin with.   
  
This is Dean’s purpose now.  
  


**3**

  
  
It's the same road. It is the same valley. It is the same lake and the same bridge. Dean is sure of it.   
  
There is no Benison, though.   
  
He knows every goddamn inch of the forest from the same nightmares that keep on reminding him how Sam’s hand sprawled across Dean’s heart feels. He dreams of the Horned God, and what he had made Sam do to Dean, every damn night and that is not even the worst of it. He relives the ritual over and over again, and each time it’s less of the God and more of Sam until, in the end, it’s not even the forest anymore but a dingy motel room in which the two of them do it. When he wakes, he aches not just from sleeping in his truck but also deep in his stomach. He figures it’s the guilt eating him up from the inside out or the cheap alcohol he uses to self-medicate, and neither one is particularly good for him.   
  
He should be able to find his way back to that spot in the trees, or he feels like he should after what has happened there anyway. He sees it in his dreams, but he doesn’t. He can’t find the town, or the forest, and it's driving him insane.  
  
  


**4**

  
  
Dean can see the pattern. Sixteen young women have gone missing in 34 years. Two girls go missing every two years and always in the same pattern, although not always from the same county, which is probably the only reason why the FBI is not all over the case. He still wants to find Benison again, but if he can’t he might as well help someone else while he is around.   
  
One girl has already died. She and her boyfriend were last seen together in his car, but he came home without her. The sheriff interrogated him, but all the boy would admit to is that the girl, Emily, didn’t take as much interest in having her first time with him on his car’s backseat as the boy had, and so he left her standing on the side of the road.   
  
Two days of research and about half a dozen talks with almost-but-not-really witnesses later, Dean can say only two things for sure: the thing might be a troll – it’s eating periodically and has a taste for virgins − and it’s going to be hungry again soon; and that the lore says that trolls usually hide below bridges, so it’s only logical to search for the thing there. After another day of driving around and studying road maps he finds only one bridge that is close enough to the spot the boy had last seen the girl.   
  
Turns out, it is the only bridge that fills all of the other criteria, too. It’s an old, wooden bridge that still has brick foundations and an iron frame. A lonely, gravel road called ‘The Baker’s Road’ leads up to it and vanishes afterwards in a wild, unattended piece of private forest that also belongs to the Baker family.   
  
As Dean finds out, it’s also the most popular place for all the lovers in the county when they want to have a quiet place for themselves. All things fit together perfectly – the boy letting the girl stand there after she doesn’t want to have sex with him and the virgin walking home alone.   
  
He slowly drives up Bakers' Road towards the bridge, and finds a red Ford Sierra that has seen better days already parked in the shadows of the trees on the other side of the lake. There is movement in the car as Dean stops the beat-up pick-up he’s driving on his side of the bridge, and a moment later the red car starts up and comes across the bridge as well. Inside sit two slightly disheveled looking teenagers. The girl is blushing, bright red and looking anywhere but at Dean as they drive by, the boy behind the wheel just stares at him with all the annoyance of a guy not getting laid today.   
  
Dean can relate to that. The troll has picked one hell of a spot to get a regular supply of young, tasty flesh, and one at which people will not look at too closely because everyone has some secret that connects to this place. It’s funny though, in a way, at least for Dean.   
  
“It’s meals on wheels,” he snickers, and looks over to the shotgun seat, expecting Sam to glare at him for the inappropriate joke, but Sam is not there.   
  
Dean squares his shoulders and leaves the car to check out the location.   
  
  


**5**

  
The troll is almost invisible. In the lore, they hide below bridges or in the mountains, sometimes they turn to stone in the daylight, sometimes their skin turns to bark and their hands to roots and branches. It depends on what kind of troll it is.   
  
Dean has encountered at least two types in his life: Stone-Trolls and Wood-Trolls. And while the first is usually a matter of some explosives at the right spots, the second is a lot easier to deal with.   
  
The troll below this bridge is nothing but a twisted, gnarly old tree that has curled against the foundation of the bridge. Patterns that look much like northern runes run down its sides in two lines, from where the meager crown is pushed up against the bridge to where its roots bury in the gravel of the lake bed. He has to cut the rune lines to kill it. To get there, he only has to cut through another two branches that are slung protectively around the tree trunk and then it’s done.  
  
He shrugs his shoulders and climbs back up to the truck. He has a chain saw on the bed, right along with all the other things he has brought along for his pagan hunt, and he might as well do the deed now while it is still day.   
  
It is a small satisfaction to get rid of this monster in face of the fact that he cannot do anything about the pagan worshipers. Maybe that is what makes him ignore the small voice inside his head, telling him what a spectacularly bad idea it is to do this without backup.

**  
6**

  
The wood-troll is a fucking monster. The thing uncurls from his spot of hiding under the bridge in a rustle of leaves and gnarly branches that seem to have no end. He stands tall as a millennia-old oak as he finally frees himself from the confinement of the bridge’s foundations and tells the world how much he hates to be woken before his time has come with an inhumanly loud screech that shakes the ground below Dean’s feet. It has no mouth or face, and the sounds seem to be more like a strong vibration coming from deep below the troll’s bark than a real voice.   
  
Dean and his chainsaw look pathetic in comparison to the giant.   
  
A very pissed off giant that has just noticed that the guy who woke him has sawed off one of his limbs, and is now just standing there stupidly with the chainsaw in his hands.   
  
Dean stumbles back, barely keeping his footing, and wishes not for the first time that Sam was here to talk him out of stupid ideas like this in the first place. Sam is not here, though, and Dean it already chin-deep in this shitty situation and the shit keeps on coming.   
  
The troll slams down his branches, out to hit Dean. The ground shakes and the water of the lake just a few feet away bubbles up as though it will boil over any second now. The sky begins to vanish behind the many leaves of the troll’s crown. It is in this moment that it dawns on Dean that he might not just have a simple troll before him, that this is nothing like a northern, mythical creature eating virgins at all. This is a Troll-Mother, a forest goddess, and he has just been way too deep in his funk to see the pattern of murders pointing this way.  
  
“Oh, shit,” he yells, as the branches close in on him. He holds up the chainsaw but is fairly sure all he’s going to hurt is himself; should all of these bits and pieces of wood attack him at once. He throws the whining chainsaw to the side; it bounces off the ground, nearly hitting him, as he jumps out of the way.   
  
The Troll-Mother keeps on hitting the ground around him with her branches and all he sees are leaves and darkness where they block out the light. He finds himself wrapped up in branches and leaves, vines closing in around his ankles and legs, and razor sharp leaves cutting up his face. He keeps up the fight for as long as he can, tries to wriggle out of the clasp of nature, kicks and punches, and cuts up with hands and arms with the movement. Blood runs down his face and he can taste it on his lips, but he continues going on, blindly.   
  
Here, caught up in the arms of an angry Troll-Mother, Dean Winchester becomes aware of a few things that he had been too scared to admit to, when he got out of bed this morning. Things he practically avoided admitting to for his whole goddamn life. For starters, he knows he should have done more research on this case, checked for evidence before cutting into what he thought was a simple troll. He also knows that this might very well be his final mistake if the pace with which the angry monster is closing in on him is anything to go by. And now, here and so close to what might very well end in mangled bones and cut up skin, he also knows that he regrets that he had been scared all of his miserable fucking life.   
  
Now, faced with death, he only truly regrets one thing: that he is alone.   
  
That he has run away and left Sammy alone. He abandoned the one good thing in his life, and the regret feels worse than any other feeling he has ever had before, washing over him as the leaves cover up the last specks of light around him. Vines and branches curl in around him, ready to squeeze and he closes his eyes, no longer able to move.   
  
This is it.  
  
Dean Winchester is going to die because an angry tree is going to trample him to the ground. It’s going to be painful, and he’s going to be all alone at the end.  
  
Except that he really isn’t.   
  
He feels the howl of the creature more than he hears it and a sudden shudder runs through every single fiber of the Troll-Mother’s being. He takes in the sharp, fresh smell of kerosene and smoke as the branches let go of him enough to allow him to breathe, and God, he can feel the warmth of a sudden fire flashing up on his skin like it’s happening only inches away.   
  
Turns out, that is exactly what’s happening.   
  
Above him, on top of the bridge, stands the Impala, dark and familiar. Dean cannot see it as more than a shadow against the blinding sunshine coming in through the twitching curtain of leaves all around him. The more important part is that there is a person, tall and floppy haired, and so unmistakably Sam that Dean is so flooded with relief and gratitude at seeing him that it makes him dizzy. Sam molotovs the shit out of the mother, throwing bottle after bottle at the quivering giant mass of tree and bark.   
  
Dean wants to face-palm himself for not thinking of that, but trust Sammy to do the proper research. A wicked laugh full of giddy relief bubbles from his throat even with the liquid fire and the angry branches all around him. God, he doesn’t care. Anyone seeing this might think he’s going insane now, but really, been there, done that, an eternity ago.   
  
The Troll-Mother reaches up with her branches and lets go of Dean. He flops to the ground like a discarded rag doll, and laughs like a child at the flames and the chaos unfolding above him.   
  
Sam holds on to his last bottle, the rag he has stuffed in the neck already aflame. He’s gesturing at Dean with his free arm, yelling something Dean is too caught up in the moment to hear.   
  
“Dean!” Sam yells at the top of his lungs, staggering back from the edge of the bridge. “MOVE, YOU IDIOT!”  
  
Somehow it penetrates his ears and he sobers up enough for a moment to see his problem. Everything is burning and twisting and the earth quivers with the anger of the Troll-Mother. If he stays here, he’ll either burn to death or end up right below the remnants of the angry monster. He crawls a few feet, dirt burning in his cut up hands, then manages to get to his feet but falling just as quickly headfirst into the lake as one of the burning branches slams into the ground right behind him.   
  
He hits his head, that much he understands, then everything becomes blurry and dark yet again.   
  
It seems like forever, and Dean can feel the cold of the water creep into his bones, even into his lungs. The panic he has had before does not come; neither does the fear of dying alone. Sam is there and Sam will take that damn thing up there and burn it to crisp.   
  
His little Sammy had turned into a damn fine hunter that wouldn't go down without a proper fight. Dean feels proud, and strangely at ease because it meant that when he would be gone, Sam would be able to go on alone. Knowing that Sam can survive even without Dean there makes it surprisingly easy to give up the fight and just let the water take him.   
  
Dean’s mind is slow and sluggish by the time someone jumps in after him. It’s a human shaped shadow, closing in on him. A large hand clasps around his wrist and pulls, then an arm wraps around him to get a better hold and they hit the surface.   
  
It’s Sam who drags him out of the water and up the shore, opposite to the burning, whimpering monster, and it is Sam’s air forced into Dean’s lungs. And it’s Sam’s lips touching Dean’s long after he has started to breathe again with his own set of lungs.   
  
  


**7**

  
  
Dean wakes with a start. His head hurts like someone has tried to split it open with a hammer or something, maybe with the chainsaw he had tried to get the troll with. Things went fuzzy after he landed in the lake. He barely remembers the cold water in startling difference to the fire and smoke in the air.   
  
He remembers only one thing clearly: the shadow jumping in after him; holding onto him with big, familiar hands; and lips, he should not know, breathing air into his lungs until he can breathe for himself once more.   
  
The touch of lips to lips, hot air – Sam.   
  
“Sam?” Dean sits up fast, looking around the room.   
  
It’s not the motel room he stopped at for his hunt. The place looks like a room of an abandoned house, and the bed below him is nothing but an old mattress that faintly smells of piss and cat. And there, slouching against the frame of a door is Sam. Tall, broad-shouldered, beautiful Sam.   
  
“Took you long enough to wake up,” he says. “I already thought it was wrong to let you fall asleep at all.”   
  
Dean doesn’t know what to say. He is glad to see his brother again, god is he glad. But as fast as the happiness comes, it is overwritten by the guilt and the wrongness. He needs to leave, get as much distance in between the two of them as he can muster.   
  
“You shouldn’t be here.” Dean says and struggles to get up. “I shouldn’t be here.”   
  
Sam rolls his eyes. “Stop that shit,” he says, walking into the room. “I’ve tracked you for weeks, man. Weeks. And I’m fed up with your shit. So, plant your ass down.”   
  
Sam sprawls his hand across the center of Dean’s chest and pushes. The memory of when Sam touched Dean there the last time lets Dean go down far too easily.  
  
“Sam,” Dean starts. There are a billion reasons why this is wrong ready to come out. Sam, thankfully, is faster and better with words and cuts him off.   
  
“Oh shut up,” Sam says and sits down right beside Dean. He spreads his long legs out in front of him and swipes his dusty hands on his jeans. Dean can barely look at the hands.   
  
Finally settled Sam says, “You’ve got to stop the running, man.” He shakes his head, scrunching up his face.   
  
Sam sighs deeply as Dean says nothing, and then goes on. “This lone gunman act? It’s gonna kill you one day, and I’m not going to let that happen.”   
  
Sam hangs his head for a moment, hair falling into his face. Dean wants nothing more than to comb the hair back away and see what emotions are there on Sam’s face. He doesn’t, though.   
  
“Whatever this is, Dean,” Sam says eventually, very pointedly not looking at Dean. “This…” he says softer. “This thing. Us?”   
  
Sam turns to look at Dean, and Dean can’t help but look back although he knows that he shouldn’t.   
  
“It concerns us both,” he says, and he means it.   
  
Dean blinks slowly, his mind unable to understand. Sam clarifies with a gesture rather than with words as he puts one of his hands on Dean’s knee, squeezing softly.   
  
“I mean,” Sam says. “I feel it too.”  
  
Dean licks his lips and stares at the hand on his knee. “But…”   
  
“I know it’s not exactly normal, but with us nothing is normal.” Sam licks his lips, carefully planning his next words. “Frankly, I don’t even know what to do about it, Dean, what to do now. But this is not just you. I do feel it, too.”   
  
“Sam.”   
  
“Stay,” Sam says.   
  
It’s a simple enough word and it cuts straight through the haze of Dean’s mind. It makes nothing better or good, but at least it means that maybe, Sam will not leave Dean.   
  
That maybe, it’s only half as bad as Dean expected it to be.   
  


** 8 **

  
  
The confession doesn’t make it better. There is no happily ever after or a magic spell that makes it suddenly okay to love your brother the wrong way. Dean has to get things sorted out in his head, but it isn’t as if Sam has nothing to work through. The two of them are in for the long run and both have to learn how this will work out and if it will work out.   
  
The two of them are fucked up, but fucked up together.   
  
Dean is scared, but deep down he knows when he sees his brother that he will not leave because Sam is just as scared as he is.   
  
Sometimes Dean smiles at Sam. And more often than not, Sam smiles right back. It’s a shaky smile, awkward and lopsided, and insecure, but there.   
  


**9**

  
  
There is a storm heading for the mountains. The road is black and wet from the first drops of rain and leads everywhere and nowhere. They drive together, and from here on out, anything can happen.   
  


:::

 

Don't get me wrong I'd never say never  
Cause though love can change the weather  
No act of God can pull me away from you

  
~ Chances by Five for Fighting

**Author's Note:**

> Let me start by saying how insanely proud I am to have written ANYTHING AT ALL! This is my first time as an author in this BigBang and It was one of the biggest challenges to put this story on paper while Real life tried to do its best to fuck me up ten ways from Sunday. AND I WON! I finished this thing way ahead of the deadline and had two awesome beta readers [Lj]dehavilland and [LJ]novakev beat it into submission. It might not be what readers expect, but then my stories never really are. And yes, If I had taken in all the ideas I had for this monster, it might have easily hit the 50k mark and beyond. What happens to Dean in here, and what happened to him before this story even started can not be solved in 22000 words. And I don't say I try to do that.


End file.
